Long Road, Steady Hands
by flannelcastiel
Summary: Dean's always wanted a touch here, a touch there - but no one really knows how much he *needs* touch. Except for Cas. Cas knows.


_**Rating:**__ T_

_**Summary:**__ Dean just want a touch here, a touch there-but no one knows just how badly he __**needs **__it._

_**A/N:**__ Just a drabble I originally posted on Tumblr to satiate my hand holding kink :) As usual, I don't have a beta._

* * *

No craving rivals that of Dean's need for touch.

The desire to have hands on his face, his chest, his arms, his _everything, _has often manifested in the form of an endless string one night stands with women whose touch was unrestrained because they had a little too much to drink. Sometimes he has his urges, needs to take control (and the girls, they _liked _that), but more often than not Dean wanted fingers to dance across his skin, leaving trails of goosebumps in their wake.

It's something short of a miracle when Dean discovers that his newly human friend—and he thinks _friend _is a very loose word for whatever he and Cas have become—is curious about the wonders of touch. It started with Cas being insecure and finding solace in the warmth of Dean's fingers. Dean tries not to squeeze back, to let it be known how bad he's needed someone to just _touch _his skin and ease the cold that often swirls in his chest, right beneath his skin. He never expected Cas to be the one to push the blizzard and invite spring in his soul… but he is. He's the one.

When Castiel becomes curious as to what touching Dean's face is like, Dean does not resist. After all, this is a face that the former angel has touched many times over. Most often, while beating him bloody. But that just speaks to Cas's gentleness when his fingertips brush down Dean's temple, his jaw, and to his lips. Dean closes his eyes and parts his lips, basking in the tenderness of the touch—how _apologetic _Cas's fingers are. Dean can hear the sorrow of Cas's mind just by pressing into his hand, finding his stubbled jaw being cupped. And then his lips being kissed.

It's a kiss like many others. Dean finds the rhythm quickly after overcoming the shock of Cas _kissing_ him—maybe he shouldn't be surprised; Cas _was_ married for a heartbeat, after all. He cups the back of Cas' neck and cradles him too, and it's all so fragile and the moment could be shattered at any moment. There are so many factors that have kept them apart, but now it's pure will—_free will_— pulling them together like two magnets colliding. It's all so simple, how their fingers intertwine and Dean can feel Cas's throbbing pulse as their chests become flush. So much touch, it's overwhelming and complicating what Dean has always found so easy.

Then again, when is good ever easy?

Each kiss that follows is the same, but different too. It's bears the same weight in Dean's chest, the weight that whispers _hold him, keep him, touch him,_ and Dean never fails to choke on the heat bubbling on his tongue. He has always liked touch, but _to _touch crosses boundaries which he has only crossed a handful of times. For Cassie. For lisa. Now Castiel.

Some of these kisses are rushed before and after a hunt, when Dean feels a leap of fear in his chest that he dare not reveal during, a fear that his powerless angel could fall in the heat of battle, and that violent fire would rob his angel of all warmth.

He sometimes has nightmares, that he's holding Cas's dead body, and he's cold. He's so cold that there is frost on his thick black lashes, framing his frozen blue eyes that looks less like a summer sky and more like a lifeless glacier.

Cas wakes him from these nightmares, just by squeezing his hand. And Dean squeezes back.

Eventually, kisses and hand holding and simple gestures are not enough. It isn't Dean who asks for more, ironically, but Cas. His ankles knot with Dean's beneath the covers as his hand plays across the center of Dean's chest. It ventures down, a thumb catching in Dean's bellybutton, which effectively wakes him. Their eyes meet in the dim lamplight, and it's a quiet request as Cas's fingers skim the waistband of his boxers.

_I need you, Dean. I need to touch you._

Just when he thought nothing could ever satiate him, Cas explores him, marks him, renders him a moaning, whining, pleading mess of _need_.

Dean lays back, wishes that life had given him this wealth of contented love sooner—but it's hard to regret anything when each moment, each decision, led to warm, loving fingers threading with his own. It's finally enough.


End file.
